Every figure in SupplierVault comes from something you or your team recorded, or from supplier bills read from your accounting software if you connect it: contract terms, invoices, purchase orders, monthly usage, risk answers, scores and savings. Nothing is estimated from outside data except the market price benchmark, which uses public contract awards. This page collects every calculation in one place, with a worked example for each, so you can explain any number to a colleague or an auditor.
Currency and conversion
Each contract, invoice, bid and request keeps its own currency. Totals, charts and comparisons are converted into your reporting currency (set in Settings › Organisation; GBP unless you change it) using the European Central Bank's daily reference rates, which SupplierVault fetches every working day (a rate Finance fixes in Settings › Exchange rates is used instead for that currency).
Example: a US contract of $120,000 with a rate of 0.79 shows as $120k ≈ £95k.
- Daily rates are official mid-market reference rates, published by the European Central Bank each working day and fetched automatically, so nobody has to type them in. Each rate is worked out from the euro rates: 1 USD in GBP = the GBP rate ÷ the USD rate.
- A rate Finance fixes always wins for that currency, so you can use your own monthly or budget rate where you need to.
- If there's no rate at all (daily rates switched off and none fixed), the amount is counted 1:1 (so $1,000 counts as £1,000) and you'll see "No rate for USD".
- Rates are only used to compare like with like. SupplierVault never converts or moves money.
- Amounts are shortened on screen: £1,234 shows as £1.2k, £12,345 as £12k, £1,250,000 as £1.25M. "Download for Excel" exports use exact numbers.
Spend
Committed spend
The value typed into "Committed spend" on the supplier's contract: what you've agreed to pay, not what you've paid. "Committed spend under management" on the Dashboard adds this up for live suppliers (stage Active or Under review), converted to the reporting currency.
Actual spend, last 12 months
- It's a rolling 365 days up to today, not calendar months.
- Invoices with any status count (Received, Matched to PO, On hold, Disputed and Paid), except rejected invoices, and bills that were voided, cancelled or deleted in your accounting software or left out of spend. Amounts are as entered, which should be excluding VAT. Bills read from your accounting software use their amount before VAT, and credit notes read from it count as negative amounts, so they net off.
- Purchase orders count only when the Purchase requests module is on, and drop out as soon as an invoice for the same supplier carries the same PO number, so nothing is counted twice.
- Invoices come from what's entered by hand, imported, read by the invoice reader or sent through the API, plus bills read from Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage Accounting, Sage 200 or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central if you connect one. A supplier that isn't linked to your accounting software only has the invoices entered for it. See Connect your accounting software.
Example: invoices of £4,000, £4,000 and £4,200 in the past year, plus an order for £1,500 not yet invoiced: actual spend = £13,700, shown as "£12.2k invoiced · £1.5k on order, not yet invoiced · against £15k committed".
The Dashboard's "Spend figures" switch flips the charts between Actual, last 12 months and Contract commitments. The monthly chart shows the last 12 full months (the current month isn't a column). A supplier is flagged "▲ Concentration" when it has 40% or more of the total. If there are no invoices or orders in the last 12 months, the charts start on Contract commitments: committed spend, the contract value of live suppliers.
Spend on the Payments page
The "Invoiced" column in "Supplier payment setup" is every invoice ever logged for that supplier, converted, not just the last 12 months. Rejected invoices, and voided, deleted or left-out bills, aren't included. Credit notes net off.
Renewal and notice dates
All dates count back in calendar days from the contract End date.
An auto-renewing contract whose end date has passed, with no notice served or renewal recorded, rolls forward by whole auto-renewal terms until its current end date is today or later, and every deadline is counted from that date. The end date you entered isn't changed. See Contracts and renewals.
Example: end date 31 March 2027, 90 days' notice, 120 days to change figures, 90-day review lead. Change figures by 1 December 2026; notice by 31 December 2026; review starts 2 September 2026 (90 days before 1 December).
Renewal status
| Status | When |
|---|---|
| Decided (green) | Review status is "Notice served" or "Renewal agreed" |
| Ended | The end date has passed |
| Notice missed (red) | The notice deadline has passed |
| Change deadline missed (red) | The change-figures date has passed but the notice date hasn't |
| Act now (red) | In the review window and either notice is due within 30 days, or no review has started and the first deadline is within 45 days |
| Review now (amber) | In the review window, otherwise |
| On track (green) | Before the review window opens |
Countdown chips are red within 30 days, amber within 90 days and grey beyond. "Up for renewal · 12 months" adds up the committed value of contracts not yet decided whose notice deadline is within 365 days.
When you start a renewal review, eight tasks are dated backwards from the next deadline: 60, 55, 45, 40, 35, 25, 20 and 7 days before. If some of those dates have already passed, they're squeezed between today and the deadline.
Usage, consumption and forecasts
These apply to suppliers billed on what you use (licences, cloud, energy). They're worked out in the contract's own currency from the monthly usage you record.
Committed spend, drawn down by usage
Example: £1.2M committed over 36 months; £500k drawn so far; run rate £30k a month; 15 months left. Forecast = £500k + £30k × 15 = £950k, so the shortfall is £250k (21%, shown red). A shortfall over 2% of the commitment is flagged (red over 10%); otherwise any overage is flagged amber with its cost.
Pay as you go, and fixed fee plus metered usage
Example: run rate £9k a month, budget £96k. Forecast £108k, 12.5% over, flagged amber (red above 15%). Flags start once the forecast is more than 5% over budget.
Capacity in use
Example: 50 licences; last three months 41, 42 and 40 in use. Average 41 ÷ 50 = 82%. Under 70% is flagged "Under-used" (paying for idle capacity); 95% or more is flagged "Overage risk". If you don't record units, the hand-entered "Capacity in use (%)" is used instead.
Invoice checks
Only invoices with a "Billing period" are checked. More than 2% off is flagged; more than 10% is red. Example: fixed fee £2,000, invoice £2,150 = +7.5%, flagged amber.
Savings
Savings come from three places: logged by hand in a supplier's Governance section, automatically when a sourcing award comes in below the approved budget (was = budget, now = winning price, counted as cost avoidance), and from a verified service improvement (was = benefit achieved a year, now = 0). Totals are split into hard savings (cash) and cost avoidance. Example: renewal quote £52k, negotiated to £46k: saving £6k.
Category plans
| Figure | How it's worked out |
|---|---|
| Spend, last 12 months | Actual spend (above) of every supplier in the area |
| Under contract | Committed spend of live suppliers in the area |
| Savings delivered, 12 months | Savings in that area dated in the last 365 days, and the % of your target |
| Renewals in the next 12 months | Contracts in the area whose notice deadline is within 365 days (including ones just passed), with the end date no more than 30 days ago |
| Tail spend | Sort suppliers by spend, largest first, and keep a running total. A supplier is "tail" when the suppliers above it already make up 80% or more of the area's spend, so the whole of its spend sits in the last 20%. |
Tail example: area spend £100k: A £50k, B £25k, C £10k, D £8k, E £7k. Running totals 50%, 75%, 85%, 93%, 100%. Before C the total is 75%, so C isn't tail. Before D it's already 85%, so D and E (2 suppliers) are the tail.
Market price benchmark
Matches are UK public contract awards from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder published in the last 3 years, in pounds. If fewer than 3 contain all your words, any of your words is used instead and you're told so. It's a guide to what's reasonable, not a quote.
Price comparison
A quote counts as complete only when every line has a price.
Tier recommendation
The tier assessment adds up points from five questions and the annual value:
| Factor | Points |
|---|---|
| Business criticality | Low 0 · Medium 2 · High 4 |
| Data sensitivity | None 0 · Internal 1 · Personal 2 · Sensitive or bulk customer data 3 |
| Regulatory exposure | None 0 · Some 1 · High 3 |
| Alternative suppliers | Many 0 · A few 1 · Very few or none 3 |
| Integration | Stand-alone 0 · Connected 1 · Deeply integrated 2 |
| Annual value | £250k+ 3 · £50k+ 2 · £10k+ 1 · less 0 |
"Annual value used" is the highest of the intake estimate, the contract commitment per year and actual spend in the last 12 months. Committed spend is a yearly figure, so it's used as entered. Only for "Committed spend, drawn down by usage" contracts, where it's the whole-term commitment, is it divided by the contract years (at least 1 year). Example: Medium criticality (2), personal data (2), some regulation (1), a few alternatives (1), stand-alone (0), £60k a year (2) = 8, so T2.
Risk
Inherent risk
Example: T2 (2) + customer data (2) + system access (1) = 5, so High.
Residual risk
The worst of the four area ratings you give after your checks (Security, Financial, Data protection, Geographic or concentration). Any High makes it High; otherwise any Medium makes it Medium; otherwise Low. Blank if none are rated.
Re-assessment dates
Cycles can be changed on the Onboarding page under "How each tier is managed". The third-party risk page goes red for an overdue or never-assessed live supplier, a possible sanctions match, no sanctions screening or an expired certificate; amber for a re-assessment due within 60 days, a certificate expiring within 45 days, high residual risk or required forms not yet approved.
Contract reviews
Performance and governance
Scorecard
Scores are 1 to 5. Unscored measures are left out rather than counted as zero, and weights don't need to add up to 100. Example: Service delivery 4 (25%), Commercial 3 (20%), Stakeholder satisfaction 5 (20%), others unscored: (4×25 + 3×20 + 5×20) ÷ 65 = 4.0. Green at 4 or more, amber at 3 or more, red below 3.
Governance compliance %
For each live supplier the checks are: a business owner (SRO) named, a contract manager named, each required meeting held on time (never held counts as late), each required document present and less than 365 days old, and each open escalation within its response time. Red if any escalation is overdue or below 70%; amber below 90%; otherwise green. Example: 7 of 8 checks passed = 88%, amber.
Invoice accuracy
AI use status
| Colour | When |
|---|---|
| Red | Prohibited AI practice; AI use not approved; your data used to train AI; high-risk AI without approval; a live supplier using AI without approval; ISO 42001 certificate expired |
| Amber | Awaiting approval; not known whether your data trains AI; decisions about people without a human check; yearly AI terms check never done, overdue or due within 45 days; ISO 42001 expiring within 45 days |
| Green | Approved and checked in the last 12 months |
Service improvement
- Estimated value in progress = the sum of "Estimated value a year" for improvements at Idea, Agreed or In progress.
- Benefits verified, 12 months = the sum of "Benefit actually achieved a year" for improvements at Benefit verified, completed in the last 365 days (the completion date is when the item first became Delivered or Verified).
- Supplier ideas = improvements with the source "Supplier proposal" raised in the last 365 days, against the yearly number in the contract.
Obligations
An obligation is Overdue once its due date passes and Due soon within 14 days. When you mark a repeating obligation met, the next date is the previous due date plus the repeat period, not today plus the period, so the schedule doesn't drift.
Plan counts
Assistant questions are counted per organisation per calendar month: one per question (however many steps the answer takes) and one per document read by the contract or invoice reader.
Purchase sign-off limits
A request needs each extra sign-off level whose amount it is over. The request's cost is converted to your reporting currency first, before VAT.
Example: levels Finance over £10,000 and Director over £50,000. A request for €14,000 with a rate of 0.85 is £11,900, so it needs the budget holder and Finance, but not the director. Exactly £10,000 doesn't need Finance, because it isn't over the amount. See Approval limits.
Payment practices
The report is split into the two halves of your financial year, set in Settings › Organisation › Financial year starts (April unless you change it, or September for academy trusts). With an April start the halves are 1 April to 30 September and 1 October to 31 March. Every half-year that has started and has a paid or due invoice gets a row, newest first.
- An invoice is "paid" in the half-year its paid date falls in, and "due" in the half-year its due date falls in. Only invoices with the status Paid and a paid date count as paid.
- An invoice marked Disputed at any time never counts as paid on time, even after it's paid.
- An invoice due in the half-year that's unpaid but not yet due counts in "Payments due in the period" but not as late.
- Percentages are whole numbers. Values are before VAT, in your reporting currency.
- Left out: credit notes, rejected invoices, voided, deleted and left-out bills, and bills settled wholly by a credit note in Xero or QuickBooks. Invoices with no due date and no payment terms in days are left out of the agreed-terms figures, and the report says how many.
- Paid invoices without a paid date are left out, and the report says how many. Invoices with no received date are counted from the invoice date, and the report says how many there are.
Example: your financial year starts in April. Between 1 April and 30 September you paid three invoices worth £1,000, £2,000 and £3,000, taking 20, 35 and 70 days from receipt. Average days to pay = 125 ÷ 3 = 42. By number, 33% were paid in 30 days or fewer, 33% in 31 to 60 days and 33% in 61 days or more. By value, that's 17% (£1,000 of £6,000), 33% and 50%. Four invoices fell due in the half-year: two were paid on time, one was paid late and one was marked Disputed before being paid on time. Not paid within agreed terms = 2 ÷ 4 = 50%, and because of a dispute = 1 ÷ 4 = 25%.
The report is a guide to help with the payment practices report that large companies file on the government's Check payment practices service, not the submission itself. Payments other than invoices, and your standard payment terms and policies, aren't covered and need adding yourself.
Procurement Act 2023
A contract is above the threshold when its total value including VAT is at or over the threshold for its type and your type of authority (from 1 January 2026: £135,018 central government or £207,720 others for goods and services, £5,193,000 for works, £663,540 for light-touch). Below that, below-threshold notices apply from £12,000 (central government) or £30,000 (others, and all Welsh authorities), except for schools and exempted contracts.
The Act's time limits run from a period "beginning with" a day, so that day is day 1 and the last day is 29 days later for a 30-day limit.
Example: a contract entered into on 1 March 2026 needs its contract details notice by 30 March 2026, and a contract ending on 30 September 2026 needs its termination notice by 29 October 2026.
A duty is overdue after its due date and amber within 14 days of it.
Example: a £28,000 invoice with no VAT recorded is treated as £33,600 including VAT, so it's listed in Payments over £30,000 with the check "VAT not recorded: 20% assumed for the £30,000 test". Record the VAT to be exact. See Procurement Act 2023.
Group view
Live means the Live or Under review stage. Group totals of committed value are shown only when every company uses the same reporting currency. Suppliers used by more than one company are matched on company number, or on name where there isn't one. When a currency has no rate, the view says so, for example "No exchange rate set for USD (Acme Trading): counted 1:1". See Groups of companies.
Retention dates
The financial year comes from Settings › Organisation › Financial year starts (April unless you change it, or September for academy trusts). Example: with an April start, a supplier closed on 15 March 2026 closed in the year ending 31 March 2026, so with 6-year retention it's kept until 31 March 2032 and can be deleted from 1 April 2032, unless it is under legal hold.
Supplier review cycles
- Each answer becomes a percentage of its scale: the lowest point is 0% and the highest 100% (on 1 to 5, a 4 is 75%). Yes is 100% and no 0%. Red is 0%, amber 50% and green 100%.
- Each question's score is the average of its answers.
- The combined score is the weighted average of the question scores, using each question's weight (a weight of 0 leaves it out). Each measure is the same, over the questions linked to it.
- A department's score is the combined score worked out from just that team's answers. Supplier contacts count as "Supplier".
- Scores are shown back on the questionnaire's own scale: score = lowest point + percentage × (highest − lowest). On 1 to 5, 75% is 4.0.
- Low scores are questions with a weight above 0 whose average is under the line set for the cycle. If none is set, it's 2.5 on a 1 to 5 scale, and the same point on other scales (4.38 on 1 to 10, 1.75 on red-amber-green, 0.38 on yes or no).
- Copy into scorecard converts a measure to the 1 to 5 scorecard: 1 + percentage × 4, to one decimal place.
- Only submitted answers count. People who aren't admins see a supplier's results once at least 2 people have answered, and a department once at least 2 of its people have.
- How suppliers see us uses the same maths across every supplier you can see. Its trend and "change on the cycle before" use percentages, so cycles with different scales compare fairly.
Related
- Spend and usage
- Contracts and renewals
- Tiering
- Third-party risk
- Governance and reviews
- Settings
- Procurement Act 2023 for public bodies
- Groups of companies
- Connect your accounting software
- Supplier reviews